The Joy of the Weld

Our abbreviated Grand Tour of Europe is now complete so the Lambda is patiently waiting at Cars UK for an available berth back to Australia, she will not be required to work her passage having hauled us over Swiss alpine passes, through scorching southern French valleys and at least 1000 crap gear changes by yours truly. Repetition of a roundabout every 5 Km has improved my down changes although the Lambda gearbox is a testament to the Lancia engineers who must have had me in mind when they designed it.

Meanwhile I have been filling my time getting the Bebe running with it’s new carburetor and after drilling the idle jet to .050 mm it now runs and idles, it also smokes a lot but how do you tell a 103 year old to give up? The next thing is to stop the clutch dragging as it’s nearly impossible to get into gear while stationary not helped by the gear linkage having lovely little leaf springs between the lever and the gearbox preventing the ham fisted from jamming it into gear when it’s not ready.

Which brings me to the Austin 7. I suppose the lesson here is never buy a car sight unseen although making sensible and measured decisions has never come easily when it comes to cars. That said this Austin is a real stinker giving me the opportunity to be conversant with every aspect of the car, quite an opportunity. As you can see I am down to the chassis, the new MIG welder at last has seen some duty stitching a plate to “box” the top hat section with a mild swiss cheese effect via the hole saw… more holes to come. Remember Colin Chapman started with one of these although his hole to metal ratio was somewhat different.

5 Responses to The Joy of the Weld

With regard to Chubby Chapman – much is attributed to him but the advantages of ‘adding lightness’ probably date back to hand hauled carts. Remember he was a boy when the 500cc racing car movement grew after WW11 these desperate were experts in the weight is the enemy cause. Look at the page one picture in Bolsters ‘Specials’ (Foulis 1951) this shows perforation to perfection.
It was advocated at that time that the Special builder could spend many useful nights during the winter months with a hand operated breast drill – you have the advantage of powerful cordless drills and high speed steel hole saws – more effort required CarCrank. See ya on the Powel Town Road one sunny day.

1. Your trip to Europe: when you have seen one French roundabout you have seen them all! I returned to Belgium last month after spending a week and about 1000 km in the Limousin area in SW France in the little Bugatti T13 together with 40 other Brescia’s, ending with a weekend of even more fun joining the Circuit des Ramparts races in Angouleme. Will send a couple of pics by separate email. So seen plenty of round points myself, but then a Bug gearbox is of course a joy to handle, n’est pas?

2. I’ll shortly fit one of my new Zenith 22 mm FE carbs to my Bebe and I note that you have opened up your idle jet to 0.050 mm. Could it be that it is 0.50 mm rather than the factor 10 smaller diameter of 0.050 mm ? Maybe an academic question as long as your
idling is OK. But what I do hope to hear from you is which compensator resp. main jet sizes you are using. If your engine runs well at half and full speeds this information will save me from experimenting myself. I have a number of assorted jets of both sorts
and can make any jet size if need be. I have a watchmaker’s precision tool and can measure any hole diameter from 0,30 to 1,50 mm. If the right size is not at hand I fill the
gap with solder tin, drill to undersize and use tiny reamers to get the right jet size.
So I hope to hear what your Bebe is being fed with!

3. While I see that you have a gap in your garage as far as two wheelers goes let me
suggest that you consider a brand which no doubt is rather rare East and South of Suez: The Danish 4 cylinder ohc, exposed valve springs, flat steel frame, drive shaft, telescopic front fork, motorcycle built in a number of 12.000 from 1934 and 1958. Only a few were exported, it is a sturdy bike of an unusual design which will draw attention and be admired anywhere you go. Everybody had one in my native Denmark and still today there are about 4.000 registered in that country. Plenty for sale at prices ranging from €4 to €8 or €9k. 99% of spares available and lots of technical books, drawings and know-how around …… mainly in the Danish language. Google for more info.
Yours,
Kjeld

Forgot to mention that the name of the Danish bike is the “Nimbus” (also called the Bumble Bee. I have a 1936 model w/sidecar and a 1938 model without chair.
And two 1924 “Stowepipes”, rather rare!). Nimbus was a production of the Nilfisk brand vacuum cleaner makers Fisker & Nielsen. But you surely know all this.
Yours,
Kjeld

We were at Domaine des Monédières for our Lancia Rally with some of the Brescia people from your rally so I think we just missed you!
You are right the jet was drilled out to 0.5mm and by the way the Main Jet is a 60 and the air jet is a 90

I have seen the Nimbus motorcycles on the web they look wonderful and the Stovepipe model A is the best looking of the lot you are a lucky man to have 4 of them. It would take a motorcycle like that to get me back into motorcycles.